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Latest Headlines
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Nov 25, 2009 5:38:00 PM MST
Conservation groups say Alberta caribou plan favours industrial development (Alta-Caribou-Extincti)
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EDMONTON _ Conservation groups say Alberta´s plan to help save caribou herds from extinction calls for more energy and forestry development instead of protected wilderness areas.
The groups distributed the Sustainable Resource Development Department plan for caribou herds in west-central Alberta at a news conference Wednesday. The government has not made it public.
"The action plan supports broad Government of Alberta objectives and delivers the department mandate of sustainable resource development by enabling, not restricting, access to resources," says the May 2009 report.
The report, called Action Plan for West-Central Alberta Caribou Recovery, recommends killing more wolves in the area to help the herds. There is also a call to control the numbers of elk, deer and moose.
There is a strategy to help keep caribou habitat intact, but the plan does not include establishing wilderness parks free of resource development.
Sam Gunsch of the Alberta Foothills Network said since the Tory government started talking about helping the caribou in the 1970s, the number of caribou has ped from about 9,000 to about 3,000.
He says more than two dozen government and independent reports blame industrial development for the decline. One herd north of Hinton is in immediate danger of extinction.
"The plan does not protect the caribou´s home ranges of forest from oil and gas and logging developments," Gunsch said.
"A large wilderness park is needed to keep the caribou from extinction."
The groups say less than two per cent of Alberta´s foothills is protected in small scattered parks. The rest is either allocated to industry or open to development.
Rocky Notness, a wilderness outfitter from Hinton, was disgusted by the government´s plan.
Notness said he has been watching the province and industry talk about protecting the caribou for more than 30 years.
"I see nothing in this plan by Minister Ted Morton to protect caribou," he said. "We´re losing our caribou, and it makes me very disappointed and angry."
Dave Ealey, a department spokesman, said the province continues to work on ideas to help the caribou but isn´t prepared to shut forestry and energy companies out of the area.
Ealey said the department has no immediate plan to release the report to the public, but it has been sent to some resource companies and an environmental group.
He said it can´t be posted online because of changes that are being made to the departments´ website.
"We are trying to come up with a happy medium here," Ealey said.
"We are not shutting down industry. The environmental groups _ their only response seems to be we have to have protected areas. That is not how we are going to be able to move forward with this."
Earlier this year the federal government released a report that said half of Canada´s boreal caribou herds are in decline and may die out in the next century without changes to their habitats.
The report said caribou herds are likeliest to decline in northern Alberta, northern Saskatchewan and the Northwest Territories.
It is estimated there are approximately 36,000 boreal caribou spread across Canada.
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